Reach 90 and 'your body will stop ageing'... but only if you have a Stone Age diet

Reach the age of 90 and your body won’t get any older, it was claimed last night.

Michael Rose, a professor of evolutionary biology, says that if you are lucky enough to live that long, you stop ageing.

To actually get to that moment, he suggests adopting a ‘Stone Age’ diet from the age of around 30. Grains and dairy products should be avoided and seafood, fruits, nuts and vegetables embraced.

Holding back the ageing process: Research suggests that our bodies stop ageing in our 90s and, while our health doesn't improve, it certainly doesn't get any worse

Writing in this week’s New Scientist, he says that switching to the sort of diet favoured by our hunter-gatherer ancestors could speed up the advent of the healthy part of old age.

For those in doubt, the University of California professor practises what he preaches. He says: ‘I have been following such a diet – avoiding grass-derived foods, such as grains, rice, corn and sugar cane, and anything made from milk – for two years and the results have been good.’

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Professor Rose’s advice is far from mainstream but is based on the observation that, in general, we do not get sicker and sicker as we get older and older.

Instead, population statistics show that ageing seems to stop at 93 – and does not speed up again until we get a telegram from the Queen.

As incredible as it sounds, if you make it to 99, you are no more likely to die at any given point than someone of 93.

While your health may not be great, it is not getting worse.

Healthy lifestyle: Early man lived off a diet free of grains and dairy products

The professor says the answer could lie in our genes having adapted to do different things at different ages. The older we get, the more chance there is that these adaptations will clash, causing ill health.

But, get old enough and you reach a stage at which our genes are no longer affected by such demands because so few reach such an age. This means the body doesn’t face any new problems, beyond those already present at 90.

Professor Rose says that those wanting to fast-forward to this ‘coasting’ stage should look to their diet.

He says that when we are young, our bodies are probably better able to cope with modern diets. But as we age, we would be better suited to a caveman diet.

He concludes: ‘The discovery that ageing stops suggests that the age-old desire to radically extend the human life span is a real possibility.’ But other experts on ageing urged caution, saying that Professor Rose had dismissed solid evidence into the causes of ageing.

Professor Tom Kirkwood, of the Institute for Ageing and Health at Newcastle University, said: ‘It is misleading to hold out the hope that something remarkable happens to arrest ageing very late in life and that perhaps we can make this happen at significantly earlier ages. The mortality plateau is seen only at very high ages when the risk of dying is already very high.’

Meanwhile figures reveal that a baby girl born this year is almost eight times more likely to reach 100 than her grandmother.

A female born in 2011 has more than a one in three chance of becoming a centenarian, while a baby boy has a one in four chance.

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Reach 90 and 'your body will stop ageing'... but only if you have a Stone Age diet